The Contemplative Life: the monastic cowl (2020) | Hacker News Reader

The Contemplative Life: the monastic cowl (2020)

vestoj.com

"the Cistercians are an ancient order that broke away from the Catholic Church in medieval times" (in the abstract).

No way, sorry. If you start saying this, you have proved that whatever follows is totally unreliable.

Agreed. It's also highly unusual to refer to them by the full "Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance" rather than their much more common and well-known name, "Trappists."

It makes the whole article sound like it was written by someone who cares a lot about clothing and very little for the people who wear it and their reasons.

Yes it's on a website on fashion, not a site focused on Christian spirituality :-)

In the text of the interview, it doesn't say "broke away from the Catholic Church" but "from the Catholic rule". Which is also a confusing phrasing in itself and probably the source of the error found in the abstract.

They would have said that they returned to the Rule of St. Benedict in its full rigor, no?

Having spent a fair bit of time with them I think "Cistercians" is the term they prefer, at least in England, though the full OCSO is a bit of a mouthful.

It is even more striking that it's written in the first person, so the error sounds like it's coming from the monk and not the writer. For the HN reader not aware, the Cistercians "broke away" from the Benedictines in the 11th century and are still very much "in" the Catholic Church. My great uncle is a Trappist monk and I have great memories of visiting the monastery to see him as a child.

So I'm obviously not a monk but I've known some and that doesn't surprise me too much.

Outside of some orders that highly value education, I think monastic life generally discourages knowing things for the sake of knowing them.

The political origins of a monastic order are not spiritually or theologically significant to a monk in that order really. Like sure they should know but I can imagine how it would come about that one would not.

That's a bit of an ironic take considering medieval science and philosophy...

I don't think their weighing of learning has changed just social needs changed around it.

"Able to read the Bible" was considered important for monks so they were literate. It still is, but now everyone else is literate too so it's not notable anymore.

I think you should look into what medieval monks have done for science and philosophy. It wasn't just that they were literate. You're very much underestimating that.

I built this website, nearly 10 years ago. Crazy to see it's still up and running, without any maintenance. Got to give it to WordPress, it doesn't die easy.

A friend of mine just discovered that her new client's current website was on WP 3.52 which came out in June 2013. And hadn't been updated since then. She was locked out but with help from the web host was able to get in and update it. The fact that it had very few plugins probably aided in it's longevity.

I picked apples and blackberries in the garden in that picture in 1986. The "Trappist" monks I was with were actually pretty chatty. (Many of them feature in the recent film "Outside the City". http://www.outsidethecityfilm.com http://www.mountsaintbernard.org)

Those interested in this subject might enjoy watching "Into Great Silence", a documentary on day-to-day life in a French monastery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=094I4UVjyFg

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